By LTD Magazine

Two weeks ago, someone came up with the bright idea of remaking  “We Are The World”…with rappers. While results were less than swaggalitious, we at Hood Newz (boo-yao!!) managed to swap a copy of an exclusive never before heard HIP-HOP REMIX of “We Are The World” and we must say,  this is how it SHOULD have sounded!

This mix features Bollywood sensation, DJ Khaled, renowned vocalist, T-Pain, upstart producer, Dr. Dre, Police Man’s ball host, Rick Ross, baggy-jean enthusiast, Kid Cudi, Swedish singer, Akon, children book author, Young Jeezy, satanic worshippers, Bone-Thugs-Harmony, cardigan kingpin, Drake, rehab sponsor, DMX, yogi-maven, Eminem and Christopher “King Of NY” Walken. [Read More]

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Photo by Beezer 
Interview by Bruce Bayleaf – Vice

Bristol today is synonymous with drum and bass and dubstep, but back in the mid-1980s it was the UK’s hip-hop heartland. Against a backdrop of Thatcherism and high unemployment, the city’s youth developed a taste for US rap and got heavily into the music, fashion and partying of that culture. The soundsystems, civil-rights demonstrations and parties that Bristol native Andy Beese (aka Beezer) documented in photos were in fact the roots of a burgeoning UK urban music scene, which, for a time, was absolutely brilliant. Then it got a bit rubbish, then it was good again, and now it’s kind of OK (well, the new Massive Attack album isn’t bad). These photos are a selection from Beezer’s book, Wild Dayz. We had a word with him about living in Britain’s very own version of Wild Style.  [Read More]

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By Robin D. G. Kelley – NewYork Times

“I will never be your clown,” Nina Simone shouted at a restless nightclub audience in Cannes in 1977. The mostly French-speaking crowd was either unable or unwilling to join her in a singalong, and she took it as a personal affront. “God gave me this gift — and I am a genius. I worked at my craft for six to 14 hours a day, I studied and learned through practice. I am not here just to entertain you. But how can I be alive when you are so dead?” Her speech only prompted more requests for her to “SING!” She managed to get through some songs before delivering her parting words. “You owe me,” she railed. “I don’t wear a painted smile on my face, like Louis Armstrong.” [Read More]

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By Anthony DeCurtis – NewYork Times

THIS year marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix, and, predictably, that event will be commemorated with the release of a new CD, the freshening up of his classic titles, a tribute tour and a version of the video game Rock Band devoted to him. He will be a hard figure to avoid, as viewers of the Super Bowl who heard his song “Fire” on a commercial promoting “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains” have already learned. [Read More]

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By Dell Frost – MOG

Is there any better way to illustrate just how much misogynist hip-hop has bastardized R&B than the recent release of Sade’s Soldier Of Love? Sade’s style has remained more or less the same over the course of her 26-year career, but R&B has not. Her debut album Diamond Life didn’t stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to other R&B/Soul music at the time, yet Soldier Of Love is almost alien within the the class of 2010. [Read More]

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By Paul Sexton – Billboard

The gaps between Massive Attack albums may widen as the enigmatic British act’s career span lengthens. But fans’ patience, however, has clearly kept pace.

Massive Attack’s much-delayed “Heligoland” (Virgin/EMI)-only the fifth studio album of a two-decade career, arriving seven years after its predecessor, “100th Window”-becomes the veteran group’s highest- charting album on the Billboard 200 this week. It debuts at No. 46 with sales of 18,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It also bows at No. 11 on Top Digital Albums and No. 4 on Top Electronic Albums. In the United Kingdom, “Heligoland” enters at No. 6 on the albums chart, selling more than 32,000 copies, according to the Official Charts Co. [Read More]

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By Steve Delahoyde – Unbeige

An interesting DIY copyright battle has been going on since late last week between the stationary firmPaperchase and an artist named Hidden Eloise. The latter claims the former blatantly copied one of her illustrations she’d been selling on Etsy. [Read More]

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By Steve Delahoyde – Unbeige

Want to be at the front of the line for one of theGuggenheim’s fastest selling events ever? Well, you’re lucky you have us. The museum has just announced a special exhibit/concert on March 4th to celebrate their 50th anniversary (one of many, we’d expect), and will feature a new performance-based piece by the band Animal Collective and artistDanny Perez. Here are the details: [Read More]

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By Ben Sisario – NewYork Times

After nearly a week of public protest over reports that Abbey Road Studios, the London recording complex made famous by the Beatles, had been put up for sale, its owner, the financially troubled British record company EMI, has finally spoken. In a statement issued Sunday morning, EMI denied that the studio was being put on the market but confirmed that it was seeking financial help to save it. [Read More]

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By Roberta Smith – NY Times

Judging from a number of overbearing, obstreperous and generally large works by male artists that command gallery space right now, it seems to be bad-boy week on the New York art scene. Isn’t every week, you ask? Maybe, but some are more emphatically so than others.

It’s hard to say exactly what qualifies an artist for “bad boy” status. Is it a matter of social swagger and conspicuous display? Extroverted self-indulgence and a tendency to revel in unholy messiness? A penchant for extra-large sinister-looking objects that are the sculptural equivalent of long sideburns? All this and more, certainly, awaits your scrutiny in a few of these shows, which exemplify different stages of bad-boyness: beginner (there’s still time to turn back), over the top and over the hill. Others give hints of a change of tune or even redemption. They adopt the scale but not the macho; they add parodying overtones or elegiac undercurrents; or they exercise restraint, delicately explore touch and even broach maturity. [Read More]

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